Perils of Putin's Victory Parade
by Amir Taheri • May 8, 2022
Rather than signaling the end of hostilities, Putin may announce a widening of the perimeters of a war he no longer controls.
The invasion [of Ukraine] has led to an unexpected strengthening of creaking political and military bonds among Western powers and whetted their appetite for regime change in Moscow, something that many, perhaps even most, would have shied away from before Putin began raining his missiles on Kiev.
US President Joe Biden has publicly called for ending Putin's domination of Russia. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says the Western aim is to so weaken Russia that it is never again able to invade another country. French Minister of Finance and Economy Bruno Le Maire says the aim of the war is to "destroy the Russian economy." Other senior Western officials speak of bringing Putin and his close associates to justice on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The British government has already asked a commission to start working on that scheme.
Like Hussein and Milosevic, Putin dreams of surrounding Russia with countries with regimes that resemble his, ignoring the fact that reality was developing in the opposite direction with Russia or Iraq or Serbia, ending up resembling the geopolitico-cultural sphere in which fate or events of history has located them. Putin invaded to prevent Ukraine from becoming European, not knowing that Russia itself will eventually have to bury its Slavophile illusions and adopt the "Westernization" strategy supported by such unlikely partners in a dream as Peter the Great, Herzen, Turgenev and Belinsky.
What do you do when you have called a victory parade but have no victory to parade?
This is the question that Russian President Vladimir Putin faces as his faction factory prepares to churn out a gigantic street show in Moscow with Tsarist eagles with varvels bearing Volodya's coat of arms.
The answer is that Putin is likely to keep the parade on May 9 and invent a victory to go with it. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an erstwhile chum of Putin, even claims that Tsar Vladimir will declare victory in his war against Ukraine in tune with his cheat-and-retreat tactic of one step backwards to prepare for the next two steps forward.
We shall soon know whether Orbán's prophesy is anything but wishful thinking. Rather than signaling the end of hostilities, Putin may announce a widening of the perimeters of a war he no longer controls.
No comments:
Post a Comment